Higher Ed board endorses Nixon proposals
The state's Coordinating Board for Higher Education endorsed Gov. Jay Nixon's higher education initiatives at a meeting in Sedalia on Friday, according to a news release from the Missouri Department of Higher Education.
The release stated that the DHE will begin inventorying 4,000 academic programs at all public colleges and universities to find ones that do not meet the board's productivity standards. Those standards require that a program produces 10 graduates, five majors at the master's degree level and three majors at the doctoral level each year.
In an interview late Friday afternoon, DHE spokeswoman Kathy Love said there are some programs across the state that do not produce that number of graduates.
"Our initial research shows that there are a number who don't meet the criteria," she said. "We don't know how many, but we think it's worth looking into."
Interim Commissioner of Higher Education David Russell said the inventory will begin immediately. It must be submitted to the CBHE no later than December.
The DHE also has to form a task force to focus funding on the mission and performance of public colleges and universities and to improve efficiencies at several institutions.
Russell said the CBHE was in favor of Nixon's suggestions.
“The action of the Coordinating Board lends emphatic support to the governor’s important and far-reaching initiatives," he said in the news release.
9:51 p.m., Sept. 21, 2010
Blairski said:
So what is to happen to the programs that produces 9 graduates a year? Are the schools going to be strong armed through state financing to either disband the department or set up the enrollment numbers?? So I suppose Eng Lit majors will become English majors? Will the Philosophers have to become Political Science Majors?? This qualitative measurement hardly sounds like a good tool for our universities to implement.